MERCURY RACING V8 500R OUTBOARD ENGINE
Twenty years ago if you wanted a fast 30ft+ sports boat then your choices were limited to basically which kind of inboard engine and outdrive combination you preferred. Then we started seeing outboards, previously the go-to on smaller runabouts, RIBs and speedboats, start to appear on ever larger and faster vessels. Firstly it was all American offshore centre console boats, often with multiple outboards across the transom. Then the kind of high performance racer that traditionally wouldn’t be seen afloat without a pair of high capacity petrol V8 inboards started turning up with a set of outboards powering them past 60 knots. Now we’re even seeing 40ft flybridge cruisers with outboard engines.
The reasons generally revolve around packaging (with the engine mounted directly above the drive leg, virtually none of it is actually inside the boat), reliability, accessibility (a crane and some tools is mostly all that’s required for an engine swap), lower servicing costs and choice (design a boat for an outboard
